


i'll never know the man who loved me

by theowlinsomniac



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: M/M, also this is my first murphamy, this is completely unbeta'd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 09:07:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5451143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theowlinsomniac/pseuds/theowlinsomniac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"No," he breathes, and Murphy swears he's leaning in closer, "no, I like you just as you are now."</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'll never know the man who loved me

**Author's Note:**

> for jen, lam, & grace

He follows because Bellamy promises him the world.

"They're different from us," the older man tells him as the knife marked "J.M." scrapes across a wooden stick. Bellamy lounges against the ground like a tom cat, picking at his teeth with a long blade of grass. He watches him with a thoughtful eye. The night around them is anything but quiet. Murphy can hear laughter, shouting, and screams. The sounds of people exploring a new world.

The fire between the two of them is bright, illuminating Bellamy's tanned face, and Murphy's sunburned one. Through the flames, Murphy can just pick out Bellamy's constellation freckles across his cheeks (put there by the sun, whose warmth was an enigma that Murphy would never get used to). "They sit high and mighty on their privileged asses while people like us," his beautiful eyes flash up to meet Murphy's, "people who fight to survive." Bellamy grunts and looks back at the stars. Murphy swallows. It's hard to stop staring. He forces his gaze to the stick in his hands. He runs the blade across it again, defining the sharpened point at the end. The freckled man shuts up after a while, eyes still wide with wonder as he gazes at the stars. Murphy wonders if anyone will ever look at him the way Bellamy looks at the sky.

 

(Bellamy puts his hand on Murphy's shoulder. It lingers there. Their eyes meet for a moment, and Bellamy gives his nod of approval. Then the smooth warmth of his hand is gone, and Murphy goes back to work, his heartbeat throbbing at an erratic pace.)

 

He stumbles out of his lair with his arm hooked around a girl's neck and his hair amuck on his head. His lips are pouted even though he's grinning like a fool and there's little bruises right below his navel and around her neck. Murphy glares. The girl spins in his arms, kisses his wrist, and saunters off. A few look on in disgust, a few in envy. Bellamy stands on the platform like a mountain lion stands high above his prey. His eyes are wild, his expression glowing. His eyes land on Murphy. His smile broadens, and he disappears. Murphy's face grows hot, and he turns back to the boy he'd just been bossing around. He kicks him, shouts something vulgar. He was certain now. He'd give anything to be the one running his lips around Bellamy's wrist. He'd give anything to slip into that bed chamber and have people look at him like he was something other than dirt. Want to be him instead of swallow him whole. And now Bellamy knew what Murphy knew.

(Sometimes Bellamy looks him up and down, tugs on his bottom lip with his teeth. Murphy pretends not to notice, pretends not to see that Bellamy craves something more than just the late night conversations and the following of orders, obedience. Murphy whittles away at the same stick of wood, eyes trained on the grain, until he hears Bellamy walking away.)

"Shit," Murphy huffs, picking at his jacket seams. He hears someone come up behind him, give a huff of laughter.

"Give it to me," Bellamy's deep voice rumbles. Murphy turns, rolling his shoulder back with a scowl.

"Why?" he asks defensively, biting the inside of his cheek. Bellamy grins, hitting his shoulder playfully.

"I'll fix it for you," he says, already tugging it off of Murphy's shoulder. Bellamy moves closer, so close Murphy can feel his warm breath on his neck, smell the faint scent of sweat and leather. Murphy shrugs it off his shoulder, glaring at the older man as he takes it into his hands, studying the tear in the fabric.

"How?" Murphy grumbles, "I told you I'd help you. Is this all you're going to repay me with? A patched up jacket?"

"Nah," Bellamy says, looking up. Before he can finish, someone calls his name. His head turns, and Murphy feels his chest explode at the sight of Bellamy's jaw tightening. The taller man tosses the jacket back with a smirk, "Come to my tent tonight, I've got needles and thread." He jogs off to help someone else with the wall. Murphy's hands start to shake as he clutches the jacket tighter.

When it's dark and he knows Mbege is asleep for the night, he turns up at the front of the dropship, pulling back the curtain slowly and shuffling inside. Bellamy's there, a loose sweatshirt hanging on his shoulders as he sits with his back against his makeshift mattress, hands trailing along the pages of some sort of technical manual.

Murphy coughs, making his presence known. Bellamy turns his head, nodding him over casually and gesturing for him to sit. Murphy follows orders (like always) and slumps down beside him, handing him the jacket. Bellamy reaches under his pillow, pulling out a small package and pulling out the contents into his lap. There's a few pieces of fabric, a half a spool of thread, and a few bent needles. Murphy watches him carefully thread the string through the needle's eye, and then pick out a reddish rough-looking patch. Murphy grunts in protest.

"What? You like green better?" Bellamy asks quietly, amused. Murphy scowls, sitting back and crossing his arms.

"Whatever. Just don't fuck it up." he mumbles as Bellamy continues, starting to sew up the jacket from the inside. He concentrates on the patching, eyes squinted, lips pursed. "Where did you learn to do this?" he asks quietly, hoping to not interrupt. Bellamy doesn't look up from his work.

"Mother." is all he says, finishing up quickly and then turning to adjust the outside. Murphy watches in silence. He runs his hand through his hair, gazing around them room as Bellamy makes it clear that he won't be making any conversation while he's fixing the clothing.

The bed is a mess, sheets and blankets everywhere, there's a few scattered pages, a few manuals, some tools, and then a few piles of clothes. Some of them are obviously not Bellamy's. Most of them, actually. It makes Murphy nervous, which becomes obvious to the older man. The patch is completed a few moments later, and the jacket slides into Murphy's lap. "There," Bellamy says, voice low, "all better."

Murphy gazes at it, running his hand over the newly stitched seams. They're perfectly aligned. He bites his lip. "Thanks," he grumbles, his gaze flicking up to meet Bellamy's eyes. The other has been looking at him this whole time, eyes dark. "What's next? 'You gonna try to fix me up now?" Bellamy's lips curl.

"No," he breathes, and Murphy swears he's leaning in closer, "no, I like you just as you are now."

Murphy jumps the gun, surging forward and putting a hand on Bellamy's cheek. Their lips meet violently, teeth clinking and lips misplaced at first, but they find their rhythm. Bellamy's hand ends up on Murphy's waist, and their both smirking through their kisses.

Bellamy pulls away for air, "I knew it," he says, his eyes twinkle but not the way Murphy thinks they should. He's tugging at Murphy's shirt hem, and he can't think straight, "I knew--"

"Yeah," Murphy silences him with another kiss, "yeah, okay," and then they stop talking for a long time.

(It's only once. Sometimes Bellamy backs him against a wall, or a tree, kisses him lightly, then hard and needy, but never for too long. After a few weeks, he stops altogether. After a few weeks, things go to shit.)

Bellamy has a soft spot in his heart for sob stories, a spot that Murphy does not seem to have ever developed. Especially sob stories coming from the mouth of a girl who acted as if Bellamy was her older brother. So when it's time to choose between a little girl who looks like Octavia (and power, and influence, and the desire to please the people, His people) and a boy he might have loved once, he kicks the chair out from under Murphy's feet and watches him gasp for air, choke on his last breath.

When he picks himself up off the ground, there's a fire inside him he can't contain. Not until he's running in the woods, screaming a twelve year old girl's name does he stop to think. But he doesn't have time, because he falls face first into Bellamy's chest and scrambles backwards to recover his knife. Bellamy stands, looking back to watch Charlotte running. He turns back to Murphy, who is splayed across the ground, eyes wide in fear and anger ("The prime motivators of survival," Bellamy had once said to him). Bellamy looks at him like he's been betrayed, looks at him like he's committed an unforgivable sin. And maybe he has. Maybe loving someone who couldn't be loved was unforgivable, was inherently wrong. But he doesn't regret it, even if the look in Bellamy's shadowy eyes tells him that he does.

"I hate you." Bellamy breathes, backing away into the night. They both can hear the others approaching.

"You know you don't," Murphy spits in reply, lifting himself off the ground, "and you know you never will."

Bellamy runs. He follows because Bellamy promised him the world, and if he can't have it with Bellamy, he'll have to steal it for himself.


End file.
